Without You
by Toni Harrison
Summary: A bedside vigil.  How can it work? What do you say?  Steve mainly with some Kono, Chin and Danny. Steve's not the main one that's hurt.


Without You

Disclaimers and warnings: One little swear word or two – it's quite dark as well really but dont panic too much. I don't own H50 nor do I own this song that features a bit.

No spoilers I don't think at all really.

A bittersweet little one shot from me. Steve mainly but it's another team member that's hurt.

Hello Darkness will be back soon – I've had a bit of a dip confidence wise so this is a gentle way back in. Hope you like it.

* * *

><p><em>I can't win, I can't reign.<br>I will never win this game  
>Without you, without you <em>

**David Guetta – Without You**

It's been 3 days and yet it feels like a lifetime. He can't even look at the figure in the bed any more.

He scratches absent mindedly at his neck, remembering too late the dressing that's there until he flinches a little from the pain. At least it reminds him that he's there and that he's present.

He dreads to think what he looks like right now, he's not vain but he probably looks like seven million degrees of crap. If he'd even bother looking in the mirror to brush his hair he'd know but he's fully aware that he doesn't want to see his reflection any more than face up to what he might see in his eyes.

He glances around the room for the 10th time in less than an hour until his eyes find a welcome source of distraction. Chin's newspaper which he forgot to take home earlier.

He unfolds it and it's like a sucker punch as the face stares back at him. It's a day old. That figures. Chin's not exactly had time to rest and buy the papers this last day or so. So what's his excuse for sitting there like a spare part then?

He steels himself and turns to the paper again. There's not just that picture there, there's 3 other faces there. 3 faces that be yesterday's news to everyone except for those who loved them. All too soon the memories come flooding back, the speed at which it happened, the horror, the smells, the panic and yes the pain but most of all the panic.

He shudders slightly, shakes himself and half heartedly reads the rest of the paper, not taking in anything.

As he closes it and then puts it on the floor gently, this time the stitches in his side pull at him. A reminder that it wasn't just 4 others affected. He admonishes himself immediately. At least he's up and about, in a manner of speaking anyway. About? yeah. Up? more like down and with it? depends what the 'it' means.

He's been doing everything except what he actually needs to do and that's look at the person in the bed. He bites his lip and what he wouldn't give to be teased for the pained expression on his face right now, he breathes heavily and slowly stands up, turns the chair round and faces the bed and though the temptation is there to turn it right round again or even better run away, he doesn't.

His first attempt to speak comes out as a croak, so he coughs to clear his throat and the noise seems deafening to him and he half apologises though to who, he doesn't know.

He's about to speak again when he hears the door and he doesn't know what to do so he stands awkwardly, almost stumbling as the nurse walks in.

She notices his stumble and moves swiftly to his side. It's about all he can do to avoid snapping at her and telling her to focus on the person who really needs her help, you know the guy in the bed who hasn't woken in three days and he's done with it, he really is.

As quickly as he thought that thought, he brushes past her and stumbles to the door, opens it and just about makes it to the toilet. He thinks he sees Kono but he's so far beyond the point of acknowledgement that it could be the President and he'd still be kneeling in front of the toilet now, retching.

In the background, he hears the sound of the door and a hand on his shoulder.

'You okay boss?' Kono's voice is gentle, slightly scared sounding and he feels like such a useless shit in that moment. All the worry about Danny and here he is taking all the attention.

So he looks up, smiles shakily and meeting Kono's concerned stare nods vigorously. She offers her hand and as they both hear the door open again, he smiles as she tells the poor guy in no uncertain terms to leave. He stands up, with a lot of help from Kono. He nods again and she gently removes her hand from his.

Enough of him feeling sorry for himself and so he moves purposefully to the room, well as purposefully as he can with a sore side, badly cut leg and cut to pieces neck. As he moves through the door, he can't help the small intake of breath at the sight in front of him. He hopes he never gets the chance to be used to it.

He pulls the chair closer to the bed and sits. He's unsure for a moment or two what to do. So he speaks hesitantly.

'What the hell are we going to do if you won't wake up huh Danno?' He pauses. 'Nah, screw it, what the hell am I gonna do if you don't wake up? Seriously man, all of us we got our part to play in this ohana of ours, you, you're the nagging grandma, the old woman who constantly nit picks at us' another pause 'well me anyway'.

He falters. His word feel awkward, halting jarring words. Making jokes at times like this though it should feel right, it feels so damn wrong.

Lifting his head up he looks at the bed, there's no movement. Danny Williams is peaceful, and it's so wrong. As soon as it happened, he knew this was bad. The last thing he'd seen before his eyes shut was blood pouring from Danny's head, while he seemed to be twitching. He knows now Danny was seizing.

The crazy thing was that all they were doing was providing some extra support for a protest march and it had ended up with 3 cops dead, Danny as good as dead and countless others himself included injured. All the worrying and panic of a bomb, and yet as it turned out according to the paper, a gas explosion.

As soon as he was conscious back at the hospital, he'd tried to get out of bed to see Danny but no dice. And truth be told attempting to defy the doctors and stand up an hour later had seen him face plant onto the floor immediately so he stayed where he was for 18 long hours. Since then and since the nurse wheeled him in to see Danny for the first time, there's he remained except when dragged back to his bed.

He's heard them and yet they think he hasn't. That Danny's injury is severe. He knows enough about head injuries to know when brain surgery has been performed, the tell tale bald head where there once was all that dirty blond hair bears testament to that. What they don't know is that fight Danny has, the strength his Ohana will give him and that they just won't give up.

He nods to himself, the decision what to do next all so clear suddenly. He makes 3 phone calls. The response is unsurprising but makes him smile nevertheless.

Rachel and Grace will be back from England within the next day or so and he's damned if Grace's Danno will still be asleep for when they arrive.

24 hours divided by 4 people. 6 hours. A long time to talk. If it was Danny however doing this for others, he'd find plenty to talk about. And so as Kono walks through the door with a false cheerfulness taking in Danny's stillness and Steve's tiredness, it's with hope rather than conviction that he knows it's going to be alright.

'Go to sleep boss, you look like you'll fall down if you don't sleep soon'. There's no arguing with her, he senses that from her tone. And yeah, he feels exhausted and he's got 6 hours worth of reading matter to find. So he smiles and thanks her and he pats Danny's hand and without looking back, he's gone.

12 hours later and it's a good thing he asked Chin to be on hand in case he didn't wake up in time for the second shift. He's looking anxiously at his watch as he moves as quickly as he can towards Danny's room.

He hears voices and for a moment, his heart leaps out of his chest with joy. It comes crashing back down as he walks in and finds Kono and Chin on chairs either side of Danny's bed talking to each other, to Danny.

'Hey brah' Chin stands up quickly, they lock arms briefly and Chin gestures towards the chair.

They both look exhausted though apparently not as bad as him.

'Jeez boss, I'd like to say that the hours you were asleep did you good, but man, you look worse than before'. She grins apologetically as she says the words. 'Sorry'.

'I'm okay' that's all he says. He gestures towards the bed. 'Anything?'

'I swear I saw his mouth twitch when I got to the funnies of the paper I was reading to him, but nah, quiet as a mouse' Kono's smile disappears as she closes on her last words.

Chin's quiet for a moment. 'He seems more restless' He's clearly considering his next words carefully. 'There's a couple of reasons for this, one, he's getting bored and he's going to give us one hell of a bawling out for all this or two, well, he's in pain and he's tired and...' The words die in Chin's mouth and they all know what he's thinking but they're not going there, not yet.

'Thanks guys' He's barely able to get the words from his lips. 'Now get home, get some sleep and Kono, back in 12 hours after Kamekona and I have finished, right?' She nods and he feels the familiar tension in his shoulder as she squeezes it and as Chin does the same on the other shoulder.

He's alone. He's staring again at Danny and he knows it. And he hopes that Danny's aware of all this but just can't express it and he can barely wait until Danny's giving him every possible bit of flack imaginable for his angsty aneurysm faces right now.

He picks up the carrier bag and the recipe books he found, 101 ways to use pineapple in your food. Oh yeah, if that doesn't wake him up nothing will.

An hour later and he's actually finding himself agreeing with Danny that pineapple is a small abomination, I mean who'd ever think pineapple would go with stew? He chuckles slightly and realises he said that out loud. He looks at Danny's face and there's no movement there and yet Chin's right, he's more restless, his legs are twitching a little and he's sure he's spotted some tiny movement in his middle finger. Yeah, that'd be a great Danny way to wake up.

He flicks through the recipe book some more and sets it down. There's a song in his head that he heard in the background in the bookstore earlier and can't get out of his mind. It's like it's pressing and if he doesn't get it out soon, he'll pop. So he starts to talk again.

'I heard a song before and it got me thinking and this'll all come out wrong but here goes' he takes a breath 'Truth is, before we nearly shot each other that first time in my father's garage, I know now I was out on a limb, I had one less layer of armour, one less shield of protection, I felt like I was okay, I had my team around me in the seals, I had Cat when I needed something and someone to hold me, but I didn't have the friendships like I do now and that Danno is down to you, man I sound like I'm calling one of those love shows on the radio and yet here I am talking about the best buddy, the brother I never had' He grasps Danny's hand.

'We cannot go on without you Danny Williams, we'll function sure, we'll do what we have to and Five-0 will be a success, I daresay I'd get a partner who'd willingly put up with the near death experiences until he or she is ready to go up the ladder, and it'll be a revolving door, until I get bored or killed or I get Kono or Chin bored or killed and then I'll go back to the seals and that'll be it and I'll cease to function as a human being and it'll all be down to this, you keep me sane, you keep me reasonably safe and while I owe it to Gracie to keep her daddy safe, I'll keep myself pretty safe too' The first time he's aware of the tears coming down his face is when one rogue tear drops onto the hand he's holding Danny's with. And he leans forward resting his head briefly on the hand and he offers a prayer for anything in exchange for Danny coming back to them.

He looks up. 'Who the hell am I going to think I'm cooler than if you're not around' he laughs, again to himself.

'Ah screw it, this says it better than I ever could' He reaches for his phone and the play button on the MP3 player and the song plays out and he feels self conscious but he doesn't care.

For the next few hours, he just talks about nonsense things. He picks up the old newspaper that lies there still from a couple of days back and he starts from the back this time and reads it out before he gets bored and then talks some more about everything except anything serious and really he thinks Danny would find this all pretty hilarious and that Steve should probably get sponsored for being able to talk for 6 hours flat, mr strong and silent super seal. Again, he hopes that Danny is able to get some mileage out this one day.

And then suddenly, it's over and he hears Kamekona before he sees him. The disappointment he feels that he's been unable to wake Danny is strong and he feels once more the familiar feeling of letting someone down.

'Brah, go home sleep, you're sick too, haole needs you healthy when he wakes'. He wearily stands up from the chair and claps Kamekona on the back.

'Thanks for doing this man' is all he says. And Kamekona brushes off his thanks with a chuckle and a groan as he sits on the small chair that also groans under his weight.

He shakes his head as he hears Kamekona launch into the history of shave ice. Yeah, Danny'll stay sleeping a little longer.

The pattern continues and the timetable lives on for another day until Rachel and Grace arrive. And Steve's pretty much at breaking point by now, they all are and he knows that it won't do Grace any good seeing them like this, so he starts to withdraw at the same time, the doctors begin to talk more in terms of mechanics and function of the brain rather than the person.

It's the early hours of the Monday morning when the vibration of the phone wakes him, he's been expecting this for so long. The tone in Rachel's voice isn't as panicked or as distressed as he feared though and he's confused.

He arrives 25 minutes later. He shouldn't really be driving but he's damned if he's going to wait for Chin, Kono or Kamekona to come by and get him. He can't afford that time.

There's voices again and they're hushed but urgent as he approaches Danny's room. He's afraid of what he'll find, he feels a push and yet when he turns there's no one there but it's strong enough to get him through the door.

The first face he sees is Rachel and her eyes are red and damp, she moves slightly and he can see the bed, he's afraid to even move just in case he's dreaming all this. Grace is kneeling on a chair and smiling and whispering quietly and though they're only open so very slightly, the blue that's combined with the bloodshot in the corners is just about the most beautiful colour he's ever seen.

Rachel looks at him and they smile. Danny won't remember this but it's just about the best feeling in the world and so he turns around and walks away back to home, back to sleep and the last words he hears are 'miracle, just a miracle' and yeah, they're right.

8 weeks later

It's 2 days after Danny's medical and 10 days before he's allowed back to work when he agrees not altogether enthusiastically to Danny cooking him a thank you meal for all the meals he's been cooking him and the ferrying around of Gracie, looking after Gracie and just being an all round good guy all this time.

It's been a long day with stop starts and idiot criminals and he just wants to slump in front of his TV, but as he pulls up outside his house, he plasters on a smile and walks through the door.

A half hour later and he's showered and sat at the table when Danny sets the plate down, he's kept quiet about what he's going to cook till now.

Just before he gives the plate to Steve, he heads to the CD player and pulls one from his jacket pocket placing it into the player, picking up the remote and heading back into the kitchen.

Steve's gaze follows him slightly more concerned by the second. Well, the doctors did say that after a brain injury, a person can do some erratic stuff, this was it by all accounts.

And then Danny comes back into the room, presses play on the remote, puts the plate in front of Steve and suddenly it's clear.

'Stew with pineapple?' Steve says incredulous, his mind taking him back to what seems a lifetime ago. The song carries on and it's all Steve can do to stop from letting the memories overwhelm him.

Danny comes back in with his plate, it's the same on there. 'Yeah, the strangest thing happened you know babe, I came out of hospital and the first thing I wanted was for the recipe for this and to get this song, I have no idea why'.

It's clear Danny's not bluffing as he starts eating the stew 'Not hungry babe? Well more for me huh?' and Steve smiles and then he laughs and still the song plays in the background.

And he grins, picks up his glass, shakes his head and they toast and it's good. No it's great.

_'I am lost, I am vain,  
>I will never be the same<br>Without you, without you_

_I won't run, I won't fly_  
><em>I will never make it by<em>  
><em>Without you, without you<em>

End.

Yeah, okay, a few liberties with this one. Rachel and Grace being in the UK for one and the name of the recipe book. I can't say for certain there's no such recipe book but I doubt it as on this I'm in 100% agreement with Danny. Stew with pineapple. YUCK!

Hope this was okay, made sense and wasn't too crappy.

Back soon (ish).


End file.
